


stripped bare souls

by roswyrm



Category: Rusty Quill Gaming (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Class Swap, Alternate Universe - Evil, Attempted Murder, Hamid is a brat change my mind, Happy Murder Family, Human Sacrifice, M/M, almost, i'll manage to kill him in one of these works, just not this one, lack of brutal pipe murder, well. okay not EVIL evil just. a lot less. Moral., wilde lives :(
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-19
Updated: 2019-06-19
Packaged: 2020-05-14 13:37:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19274419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roswyrm/pseuds/roswyrm
Summary: ALEX:...and you are playing?BRYN:Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan, a Halfling Warlock who giggles menacingly.LYDIA:Sasha Who's Asking who stabs things... appraisingly.BEN:Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam, Antipaladin of Hades, who kills stuff deadily-y.(BRYN and LYDIA failing to muffle their laughter)HELEN:And Azu, who loves her friends angrily.LYDIA:Aww!(laughter)





	stripped bare souls

**Author's Note:**

  * For [hinotorihime](https://archiveofourown.org/users/hinotorihime/gifts).



> me: hamid but make him a warlock  
> me, two seconds later, jolting upright in bed: THE PARTY BUT MAKE THEM EVIL
> 
> and then i wrote 8k words of that and couldn't figure out how the hell to end it, so i just picked a good kinda-cliffhanger. that works, right? that works?? also, i was torn on writing this bc if i kept it gen, maybe bryn would read it, but also..... murder husbands.............
> 
> Working Title: _the real tentacles were inside us all along_

If nothing else, Hamid’s Patron is a fun one. Not kind, necessarily, but fun. Hamid broke down in tears after the events that Gideon put into motion, and his own little faerie godmother came to fix the situation. 

(Fix by killing Gideon and writing fey symbols Hamid didn’t properly understand on his wrists with the blood, but whatever works. Liliana saw, and that was sad – Hamid rather liked her, but it wasn’t like he could have it getting out. The blood burned into his wrists like acid, and his Patron giggled madly in his ear as Hamid howled in pain. “On your feet, darling,” whispered his Patron, and the howls turned to shaky, sobbing laughter, “you’re mine, now.” And Eldritch Blast burned bright in the violet shackles around Hamid’s wrists as he set about dealing with the loose end that was his girlfriend.)

If nothing else, Hamid’s Patron is a fun one, and he remembers this more than ever when he leans against a brick wall and watches a familiar face slaughter several thugs. Bertie looks… well, the armour certainly cements that he’s been doing well for himself. So flashy. Hamid adjusts a cufflink and expresses a silent apology to his Patron for being so ornate when they first made their pact. Bertie slams another man into the cobblestones, and Hamid winces. “Ooh,” he says, in unison with the crowd. And then he decides that, really, enough is enough, and he turns and lays a hand on someone’s shoulder. “I think,” he murmurs, eyes glowing with his Patron’s light, “you should go make a distraction. A big one. Get everyone far away from this place.” The person nods, slowly and then faster, almost crazed, and they leap on top of a crate to do… oh, to do something, Hamid doesn’t care.

He cracks his knuckles and takes a step into the alleyway with a grace that might seem unnatural if it didn’t fit so well in his skin. “Oh my God,” he gasps, a smile flickering up across his face with a bit more melodrama than is strictly necessary, but it’s precisely the amount that will fly under Bertie’s radar. “Bertie!” The goliath turns around and recognises him (and if that’s not the biggest stroke of luck he’ll ever have, Hamid doesn’t know what will be) and scoops him up into a hug. Hamid is all too prepared, hands coming to rest delicately around Bertie’s neck. “I haven’t seen you in _ages,”_ he gushes, “a-and who are your new friends?” His eyes flick like a dragonfly’s wings might, from the dwarf to the shadow in the corner that might be a human and back again.

The dwarf glares at him, instantly distrusting, and Hamid is nothing if not a disciple of his Patron. He’s going to have _fun_ with him. “Zolf. And I’m not his friend. I’m his boss.” Hamid bites back a comment about men in uniform, if only because Zolf is wearing rather ratty clothes under his sharp blue coat.

“His boss?” Hamid echoes, wide-eyed and innocent. Zolf nods once, brisk and straightforward. All the grim ones seem to laugh the loudest, after Hamid and his Patron are through with them, and he’s willing to bet that Zolf has a _wonderful_ laugh. Purple will look good on him, flickering out of his eyes as he slowly loses himself to the magic. God, Hamid can barely wait.

The shadow steps out of its corner, black hood drawn high and silver (Hamid shifts back, slightly) daggers on full display. “You hiring?” The figure asks, and Hamid recognises a female voice, with an Other London accent. Interesting. A disgraced Meritocratic officer, (judging by the coat and the brusqueness, at least) a posh idiot with a silver spoon jammed down his throat, an Other London thug with style, and a warlock all observe each other in a blood-soaked alley. Like the set-up to a bad joke.

Hamid’s going to have so much fun with the lot of them.

\---

Bertie bisects a man _right in front of him,_ and Hamid very nearly vomits. He settles for giggling, instead, and when the man on the ground tries to cast a spell, Hamid crushes his throat with Mage Hand. “Oh, dear,” he calls, “Zolf, did you say you wanted the culprit as a sacrifice?” The rest of the battle winds down, and Sasha (the shadow, the slayer, the whirling dervish of knives) stabs one of the more twitchy corpses in the spine. It falls still immediately.

Zolf calls, “Yeah, why?”

Hamid sucks a breath of air through his teeth. It’s a show, of course, he just thinks that being so obviously uncaring will rile up the inquisitor even more. “This culprit?” Zolf storms down from the stairs, and Hamid points. “The one whose windpipe I mangled?” The caster on the floor wheezes desperately, clutching at their throat and suffocating very quickly. “Maybe if you can dump him in the Thames quick enough, it’ll count,” Hamid says with a mock-pout, and Zolf growls at him. Hamid drops the act to give him a cheery grin. 

\---

“Hold on,” Hamid whispers, “the door’s unlocked.” Bertie draws his sword immediately, which would be sweet of him if Hamid didn’t know how bloodthirsty the bastard is. Zolf grabs his wrist and gives him a warning look, and Bertie grumbles slightly as he lowers the blade. Hamid’s grateful; Bertie probably would have ruined his apartment, slashing around the way he does. Hamid has so many lovely, expensive tables he doesn’t want to be ruined. He won’t admit that he’s grateful, though, because that might give Zolf an idea that Hamid isn’t single-mindedly focused on breaking him. 

(Zolf _did_ laugh, just once, when Sasha was telling them to make their clothes less nice for the trek down to Other London. Hamid objected, clearly, and Sasha snapped something about not wanting to get his fancy suit ripped off of him for all his questions. And before Hamid could snap anything back, Zolf had chuckled, “I mean, it depends on the questions you ask.” Hamid was so moonstruck by that half-laugh that he barely even protested the rest of his makeover.)

From inside the apartment, there’s a gurgly scream. Hamid startles, and the violet runes around his wrist glow as he prepares an Eldritch Blast. Sasha opens the door. The glow abruptly flickers out, and Hamid looks at the place where she was before staring up at her. “Killed him,” she says simply, and Hamid pushes past her because if she got _blood on his carpet,_ then the burglar won’t be the only casualty in Hamid’s apartment tonight. There’s a man with his throat slit sitting in Hamid’s armchair, and his red suit is getting redder by the second. Zolf stomps forward and sets his hand against the wound to seal it up with holy light. “Zolf!” Sasha protests.

Zolf gives her a look over his shoulder as the man coughs up his own blood in a frantic attempt to get air back into his lungs. “We might need information,” he answers, steel in his voice. There’s blood getting on his own coat, too. It isn’t purple, just an ugly splash of red against blue, which is a crying shame. Hamid’ll have to Prestidigitate him clean again. “Morning. Who the hell are you, what the hell are you doing here?” The man starts to speak, but Zolf’s fingers around his throat cause the words to come out as little more than desperate choking sounds. “Choose your words carefully,” the inquisitor says, more menace than really ought to be possible coating the syllables.

The blood drips down across Zolf’s hand onto the carpet, and Hamid clicks his tongue disapprovingly.

\---

They go to Kew Gardens, and the slow, grinding ride down to the basement fills Bertie and Sasha and Zolf with dread. Hamid can see it on their faces. And maybe he’d feel dreadful, too, but spooky is sort of the platonic ideal for warlocks, and really, he just feels giddy. “Do you think there’ll be monsters?” Hamid asks the slayer, trying to keep the glee from his voice.

Sasha twirls her daggers around her hands in anticipation. “Probably,” she says with a shrug as she slots them back into their twin sheathes on her hips, and Hamid barely manages not to rock back on his heels with a colossal grin on his face. Hamid _loves_ monsters. No one cares if you slam a monster into the ground with eldritch arcana, no one cares if you’re cruel to a monster, no one care what you do to something as long as you label it as _creature._

Hamid has more than a small bit of frustration to work out, anyway.

(Hamid and his Patron mostly focus on causing brief-yet-brilliant bursts of rapturous joy or deranged, uproarious delight. And Zolf didn’t really seem filled with either of those when he held the reporter’s head under the water, but the cruel curve of his lips was just as entrancing to Hamid. Bertie convinced him to let the man go, and ‘go’ Oscar did, so quickly Hamid swore his shoes left skid marks on the floor. Zolf snapped at him, and Hamid snapped back, and the way that Zolf snarled, so close to the damn-near wicked laugh he’d let out earlier… Hamid just has a lot of frustration to work out.)

\---

Mendeleev is not a monster, but Zolf nearly kills him anyway. “My operation,” Hamid reminds him coolly, more out of a desire to gain some sort of benefit from this excursion than any real concern for the doctor’s life. Zolf’s fingers curl tightly into fists, and Hamid cocks his head in a challenge. “Unless you’re going back on your word, _Inquisitor?”_ It’s a low blow, a dirty move, and Hamid knows it. That’s why it’s the move he pulls. Zolf snarls and drops Mendeleev’s collar before stalking off ahead, after Bertie. (He’d looked so pretty when he smiled, and it’s a shame that all Hamid ever seems to do is infuriate him.) Hamid smiles up at the doctor, layering all the charm he can manage into his voice. “I’m terribly sorry about that. We’re a new group, and all, so we don’t quite… fit, yet. We’re working on it.” And God, he sounds so naive, but at least Mendeleev smiles back shakily. Hamid extends a hand and says, “Why don’t we try and find our way out, doctor?”

\---

Hamid stretches languidly across the sofa for a nap, and probably a dreamed conversation with his Patron. He can feel them coming on as he slowly gets stronger. Sasha pokes at his ankle and grits out, “Move.”

Hamid squints at her. “It’s _my_ sofa.” Sasha glares, picks up his feet, and settles on the sofa next to him, with his feet propped up in her lap. Hamid raises his eyebrows, but Sasha just sits contentedly where she is, under Hamid’s legs, and starts sharpening knives. The steady drag of her whetstone against the blades lulls Hamid to sleep.

\---

They get to Dover, and Zolf is told in no uncertain terms to stay in his room. Hamid isn’t having it. “If you could just _explain,”_ he hisses to Barnes, who seems quite happy to ignore the halfling dogging his heels, “why the _hell_ you felt it necessary to lock up the team’s boss, I’d be more than happy to leave you alone.” Barnes doesn’t answer, just keeps walking, and Hamid skipped _breakfast_ to save the inquisitor’s ungrateful arse, and this is the sort of reward he gets for his efforts? For his sacrifices? God, Hamid can smell the bacon. He’s ravenous.

Zolf scans the missive, and he groans. “Really? This is what we’re doing?” The guards have been waved away now that Barnes is there, and Hamid watches them go. He wishes he could Eyebite the bastards, just for making him so damn inconvenienced.

Barnes nods, all business, and Hamid decides that, really, he’s very tired, and he’d rather waste a spell on an off chance than be in the dark for sure. “What’s happening, Lieutenant?” Hamid asks, Charming Barnes with a subtle hand on his wrist and a tilt to his head that he hopes looks angelic.

Barnes’ eyes flutter, and he answers, “Zolf Smith has been MIA from the navy for six years, and we need to hold him here for his trial.” Zolf glares at Hamid (because he’s never appreciated Hamid using Charm Person) and Hamid shrugs at him. “And Charming a naval officer won’t do great things for either of you.” Hamid bites at his lip. It makes sense, and he did think about that possibility, but he decided he just didn’t care. 

Zolf grabs his bag, grabs Hamid’s hand, and says, “We’re going, then?” Hamid blinks at him, but he’s already being dragged out the door. “You go get the others, and I’ll book us train tickets to Calais.” Hamid nods, squeezes Zolf’s hand once, (more to upset the inquisitor’s balance than anything else) and strides off to gather the rest of their motley crew.

\---

Calais is lovely, and it’s even lovelier when they read the article so _thoroughly_ demeaning Bertie that Sasha actually _giggles_ when she reads it. Hamid loves it when Sasha laughs. She’s not his friend, not by any stretch of the word, but he’s planning to kill her by way of grotesque faerie hysteria less and less these days, so that’s got to mean something. Maybe he’s fond of her, like one might be fond of a particularly hostile stray cat. And Hamid cares for Bertie, too, in the way one might care for a mangy hound that makes for good protection and good fun when it bites the neighbours. Not Zolf, though. Hamid isn’t fond of him like that. Hamid can barely stop himself from daydreaming about the no-nonsense inquisitor mad with delight, screaming with laughter as his Patron’s magic eats him from the inside out. 

Hamid doesn’t mention this. 

(Hamid bets the way his eyes go wide whenever Zolf smiles gives him away.)

Zolf snickers at the article, holding the picture of Bertie in a feather boa (Hamid nearly loses himself cackling, but he needs the goliath to be on his side) up to the light. “Told you he’d make a good sacrifice,” Zolf gloats, and Bertie snarls at the paper. “Should have let me actually drown him.” Bertie snatches the little foldout from Zolf’s hands, and he’s gone a shade of purple that almost matches the arcane circles around Hamid’s wrists. 

“I,” announces Bertie, steam practically coming out of his ears, “am going to _murder Oscar Wilde.”_

Sasha snorts. “I thought that was Zolf’s thing. Worth a drownin’ and all that.” Hamid sits back and fiddles with his nails. He’d all but forgotten about Oscar after the reporter practically ran out of Hamid’s apartment, hair drip-drip-dripping water onto his already bloody suit. Hamid might have felt bad for his lungs (choked and half-drowned in the span of ten minutes, good God) if the man hadn’t broken into Hamid’s apartment and then gotten blood on his carpeting.

Zolf grins at her. (Hamid’s heart flutters like a dragonfly’s crystalline wings against his ribcage.) There’s a spark of laughter hidden deep in his voice when he answers, “I’ll let Bertie hold him in place so he doesn’t kick.”

\---

Oscar has his hands bound behind his back and his face precarious inches from a full bucket of water. “You don’t like him,” he says, referring to Bertie, looking at Zolf. There’s surety in his voice and desperation in his eyes. “Sir Bertrand, I mean. That’s why you’re drawing this out; you don’t want to kill me because I made a fool of him.” Bertie isn’t there, off somewhere else, doing something stupid, and Oscar is there to talk to them about him leaving. Zolf lets go, and the reporter’s head drops into the bucket, splashing water on the carpet.

Hamid’s caught up wondering if maybe he should start making sacrifices to his Patron when Zolf grabs Oscar by the hair and yanks him out again. “Maybe that’s what it is,” he says, and even though his mouth is set in a grim line, there’s mirth in his eyes, “or maybe, I just like watching you suffer.” Oscar looks terrified at that, as if the thought has only just occurred to him, and Hamid giggles. 

Water sluices down the reporter’s face, catching in his eyelashes and streaming off his chin. “You can get rid of him,” Oscar says, and his tone is slipping into something like panic. He usually sounds much more in control, sophisticated and carefree, like he’s laughing at all the idiots beneath him. Hamid hates that tone. That’s a perversion of the joy that Hamid holds so close to his heart. “And I can help. But I can’t do that if I’m drowned.” Water droplets trickle down Zolf’s forearm (he rolled up the sleeves of his coat, and Hamid’s gaze keeps trickling down to the exposed skin) as he holds the reporter higher, up to eye-level.

Zolf looks like he’s considering it. Hamid steps forward and protests, “You are _not_ killing Bertie!”

Zolf looks up at him, hand still tangled in the bard’s hair. It looks painful. Serves him right for bleeding on Hamid’s carpet. “There are other meatshields,” Zolf points out.

Hamid crosses his arms and snaps, “We don’t need other meatshields, we already have one! And I _like_ him, he’s funny!”

Sasha snorts from her place blocking the door. “His jokes are awful.”

“Oh, they are; I’m saying that _Bertie_ is funny. I can laugh at him, and he’s too stupid to realise I’m being rude.”

“That is one of his larger draws,” muses Oscar, sounding back to his usual smug self, right before Zolf drops his head back into the bucket so he can have his hands free.

Sasha leans further against the door, examining one of her daggers. Hamid thinks that the whole thing would be much better if they just drowned Oscar and got on with it, but Zolf is the one who requires victims, and he’s still mad at Hamid for crushing Guy’s throat. Petty bastard. It’s not a joyous thought, and Hamid tries to find one more suited to a warlock of his Patronage, but any happier ones vanish when Zolf puts a broad hand on his shoulder. “I’m just saying. We can find you someone else to distract people—” this is directed at Sasha— “and they’ll probably be just as easy to laugh at—” this at Hamid, with a squeeze to his shoulder, fingers digging in around the joint a bit too hard to be entirely consoling— “so there’s no reason we can’t kill Bertie when he gets back. If he even gets back at all.” Hamid huffs indignantly and looks down at the runes around his wrists. Still bright purple against his skin, still humming with peals of mad laughter Hamid can practically feel stretching his face open.

(Hamid’s eyes flick to the water droplets still trickling down Zolf’s arms.)

Oscar kicks once, very weakly, bubbles bursting on the surface of the water as Hamid snarls, _“Fine,”_ and he’s feeling particularly charitable (a pleased smirk etched across Zolf’s face flutters pleasantly in the lily-garden of Hamid’s ribs) because he even adds, “and you might want to pull him back up.” Zolf cocks his head before swearing and dragging Oscar’s face out of the water. The bard gives a great, heaving retch, and water leaves his lungs all at once. Hamid kicks the bucket over and Prestidigitates the stain away. Hamid kneels next to Zolf and looks Oscar in the eye. “Anyway. Where did you say Bertie was, Mr Wilde?”

\---

Hamid has had a _very fucking long day._ Bertie’s happy enough, standing on the table Hamid was on with his arm sliced open (apparently, according to Zolf, who healed him up before waking him because he ‘didn’t want to hear any weird giggling’) talking to _Mister Ceiling,_ and Hamid is about to scream, or lose his mind laughing, or both. He watched his boss get thrown into a ravine, got hurled into that ravine himself a few moments later by virtue of Sasha’s bomb going off wrong – or by virtue of Sasha being an _asshole –_ and woke up in an underground laboratory. One filled with prosthetics. Also, Zolf’s lost his other leg, so he’s going to be whine about that almost definitely, and Hamid is _going_ to—

Joyous thoughts.

Joyous thoughts for his Patron.

Hamid sniggers when he thinks of it, and he looks up at one of the cameras Bertie is playing with. “Can you hear me?” Hamid asks, and there’s laughter boiling over from deep in his chest, “Mr Ceiling, are you there?” He’s howling with laughter now, a delirious grin stretched across his face as he looks straight into the camera and screams, “I’m going to find you, whoever you are, and—” there’s a mad cacophony of Fae glee in his ears, something that sounds like his Patron echoing his joy— “a-ha-hand I’m going to _drown you_ in a _bucket!”_ He doubles over, tears of merriment streaking down his face.

“Is he having a breakdown?” Zolf asks, more disgust than concern. Hamid is cackling so hard he can’t breathe. “Hamid, it’s not that funny. It’s a perfectly legitimate threat!” Hamid gasps for air, and his chest convulses with peals of laughter he can’t quite get out past where they stick in the hollow of his throat. God, of course, Zolf thinks he’s the one being laughed at. It’s so like him. It’s so _funny._

Sasha pushes him to the ground, and Hamid curls up there, still giggling, clutching at his stomach as elation washes over him. “Religious experience,” is all she says, and it’s not like she’s _wrong,_ which just makes Hamid laugh harder.

\---

The building crashes down around his ears, and Hamid is having a pretty hard time keeping his thoughts joyous. Bertie and Sasha start to go back for the arm (the arm that was going to be Hamid’s, but Zolf saved him from that, and the thought of being indebted to _Zolf_ brings a scowl to his face) but Hamid reaches up and snags them by wrist and by sword sheath, respectively. “You’re not dying,” he snaps, high and fierce (and terrified, but he’s a warlock, terror is sort of the platonic ideal, _should be_ the platonic ideal) and nearly drowned out by his own tittering, “you’re too useful to lose!” Bertie starts to bluster, but Hamid cuts across whatever he’s about to say by Mage Hand-ing him down to eye-level and screaming, _“You don’t die until we don’t need you anymore!”_

“You’ll always need me, I’m brilliant,” says Bertie, sounding offended.

_‘No,’_ Hamid thinks, more than a little mad with smoke inhalation and his Patron playing in his ears so loud, _too loud,_ he’s never done this to Hamid before, never drowned out so much, _‘we can lose you as soon as you’ve kept us safe from debris.’_ Hamid doesn’t say that. He needs the goliath on his side. “Exactly, so come on!”

\---

Bertie is released from his contract with Harkness Harkness Darkness & Sphinx. Hamid bounces up on his toes and rocks back on his heels (the way that always made Madame LeCouteur tell him off when he was helping Aziza with her blocking) at the thought of Bertie being allowed to do whatever he wants. No more code of chivalry, no more caring about good publicity; Sir Bertrand MacGuffingham can be _exactly_ the kind of man he really is with no repercussions. “Right!” Bertie says after the shock has worn off a bit, “Good day, then! Lovely meeting you—” to Sasha— “terrible meeting you—” to Zolf— “Hamid, I’ll see you at the next alumni meeting! Have a nice life! Or don’t! It’s not my problem anymore!” Hamid’s grin melts.

He takes a step forward to block Bertie’s exit. “But what about me?” Hamid asks. He doesn’t have to fake the hurt in his voice or the affront in his eyes. Bertie blinks down at him, sets his hands under Hamid’s arms, and moves him back with the rest of the group.

Hamid makes an insulted noise, but Bertie drowns him out by saying, “Go find an actual hero, I wish you the best. Good _day.”_ He storms out the door, and Hamid gapes after him. How dare he leave without Hamid’s say so. How _dare he,_ Hamid is going to chase after him Eldritch Blast the posh idiot into next Tuesday! Hamid is going to make him laugh until he _chokes,_ Hamid is going to let his Patron eat the goliath from the _inside out,_ and he’s going to roar with laughter the whole time!

Actually, no, he’s not worth the arcana or the effort. Hamid’s just going to send a long-range hex to him as soon as he can figure out how those work. 

Prick.

There’s a metallic shifting noise, and Hamid turns to see Sasha pulling a silver-wrought arm out of her cloak. Hamid splutters. “I told you not to risk your life for that!” Sasha shrugs and throws it onto the table, on top of all their fan mail. Hamid tries to be mad, but Sasha did _survive,_ and she’s as slayer-y as ever, so he figures it doesn’t matter. As long as she’s still useful.

Sasha leans on the table. “It’ll sell for at least three thousand gold if dismantled and sold the right way,” she says, a glint of avarice in her eye. Hamid doesn’t blame her. She studies it – she Studies it, Hamid corrects himself, with a capital ‘s’ – and then pokes it just so. A finger (more of an opposable thumb stuck between where the index and ring finger _would_ be) twitches. “And we don’t have to split it with Bertie.” Hamid can’t help the way his face lights up, at that. 

Maybe they can do without a meatshield for a little while.

\---

Sasha is off fencing the arm, already, and Hamid is perched on the table reading fan mail. “Rubbish,” he says, tossing one for Zolf over his shoulder, “rubbish, rubbish, rub– ooh, this one’s for me!” He opens it greedily, and he’s reading the first line out loud when he notices Zolf standing over him. Hamid blinks up at him innocently. “Can I help you?” Hamid asks, perfectly angelic, like he hasn’t been singing his own praises for the past fifteen minutes.

“Yeah, actually,” answers Zolf, like he’s musing over something. Hamid simpers and leans in, closer than Zolf likes people getting, throwing him off balance. And Hamid’s about to use his most charming voice to ask _and what is it exactly that you need from me, Inquisitor?_ when Zolf kisses him. Hamid’s brain just about stalls out, a bubbling-over teakettle making choked hissing noises replacing any necessary synapses. Then Zolf pulls back, apparently wholly unaffected. “I’m running an experiment,” he says simply.

_“Mm,”_ says Hamid, stunned into non-words.

“Everything’s turning out spookily well,” Zolf explains, still only a few inches away from Hamid, “Sasha’s arm, your letters, my pardon from the Navy, Bertie’s contract. Seemed like a good way to test if Mr Ceiling just stuck us in some simulation.”

“Mm,” says Hamid again.

The inquisitor looks at him warily. “Are you gonna Eldritch Blast my mouth off, now?” Zolf asks.

Hamid digs his fingers into Zolf’s jaw. “Mm-mn,” says Hamid, and then he drags Zolf back down.

\---

Bertie grumbles immensely when they track him down (followed the terrified people and bought-out wineries) and drag him through the door under L’arc de Ordinateur. Hamid slams his hand down on the button again, and the room goes dark instantly. 

“Don’t be alarmed,” Bertie says after a moment of near-silence, “but I think a snake has gotten in.” Hamid snorts, and Sasha lets out a breath of air in what Hamid’s pretty sure is resigned amusement.

It’s almost like things are back to normal.

\---

“What are you doing?” Hamid asks, and there’s something like amusement there, but it’s buried beneath all of the snippish anger. Zolf doesn’t answer, staring at the water elemental with his hand pressed against the crystal. The hurricane slowly reaches up a three-fingered hand-adjacent thing to rest against its side of the prison. “Zolf,” Hamid tries, louder, and the inquisitor jolts, whirling to face him. “What the fuck are you doing?” It’s more judgemental, this time, and Zolf glowers at him.

(Blue light from the crystal sets his jawline in stark relief. The collar of his coat is high, but even if it weren’t, there aren’t _actually_ any hickeys there to cover up. Simulation and weird time orreduxes. God, what was Hamid thinking? They hate each other; they hate each other a _lot,_ that’s the whole nature of their relationship. Zolf does anything, and Hamid gets so worked up he might pop, and then he has to get rid of his frenetic energy by casting something, so Hamid Prestidigitates and re-Prestidigitates his makeup a half-million times while trying not to laugh too loudly. That’s just how things are.)

“Nothing,” Zolf answers, “nothing, just… it seems… lonely. Or sad. Something.”

Bertie leans in and pokes at the glass. The water elemental starts raging again. Bertie lifts his sword to smash the crystalline prism, and the rest of them shout, _“NO, BERTIE,”_ in perfect unison.

\---

Zolf’s prosthetics get clunky, worn-down and painful when Mr Ceiling is truly-and-certainly dead. Hamid is woken up by the sound of crying out through the wall, and he’s a little embarrassed to admit how quickly he scrambles into Zolf’s room. Zolf is half in and half out of bed, clutching at his right leg, face contorted in pain. “Can’t have one nice thing,” Zolf seethes, sinking his fingers into the metallic joints and trying to tear the prosthetics off, “fucking _everything_ has to be taken away!” Hamid seizes his hand and pulls it away, but Zolf just tries to jerk away. “Get the hell off me,” he orders, and Hamid clenches his fingers tighter around the hand in his grip.

Hamid grabs Zolf by the jaw and lifts his head. Zolf stares off to anywhere that isn’t Hamid’s face. “Zolf.” Nothing. “Zolf, _look_ at me, you stubborn bastard!” Zolf snarls, but he looks at Hamid nonetheless, and Hamid squeezes the hand in his grasp. “Listen to me very carefully, Inquisitor: get over yourself.” 

Zolf doesn’t even pause to be shocked. He just snaps, “‘Get over myself?’ Hamid, I lost a leg! I had both of them back, and now I can’t even get out of bed without wanting to _scream,_ what do you _mean,_ ‘get over myself’?” Hamid grabs the other hand that had been scratching at the prosthetic and holds it tight in his own.

“What I said: get over yourself. We’ll fix the legs, and you’ll be able to walk again, but only if you’ll stop trying to _tear them to pieces_ in the meantime! You can’t have your cake and eat it too; if you want to have nice things, you can’t destroy them the second they falter!” Zolf growls angrily. Hamid raises his eyebrows in a silent challenge, and Zolf sets a hand on his chest as if to push him backwards. “Rude,” Hamid mutters. He climbs up into bed next to Zolf, (the hand fisted in his pyjama collar helps him get up) and Zolf makes several furious, disgusted noises under his breath.

Hamid has to reach over and grab Zolf’s hands in his so that he doesn’t pick the prosthetics to scrap metal. “I hate you,” Zolf says eventually, when his breathing has evened out and the tiny blackened veins in his legs have stopped twitching every once in a while and making Zolf tense up unfathomably tight beside him, “I hate you more than anything, and I’ve imagined killing you practically since I’ve met you, and you’d do more good floating face-down in the ocean than you’ll ever do alive.” Hamid laughs. Zolf’s certainly not afraid to speak his mind. Hamid turns to him to reply, but there’s something about his face— “And I really want you to kiss me, right now.”

—oh.

“You’re terrible,” Hamid tells him. He almost sounds carefree. “I hate you, and I can’t go one day without imagining you consumed by my Patron’s hex, laughing until you bleed. If you choked on your own joyous tears, I think the world would be better for it.” Zolf stares at him, utterly neutral except for the spark of nerves in his eyes, and Hamid drops the hands he’s holding to settle his fingers back against Zolf’s jaw and the back of his neck. “And I think I really want to kiss you.”

“I’m not stopping you,” Zolf says. It could be permission, but it sounds like a threat.

(Hamid’s kiss is a warning sign, a klaxon for a four-alarm fire, and that’s all the permission Zolf needs before burying his hands in Hamid’s hair and kissing him back.)

\---

Zolf lost his trident in the catacombs because he’s an idiot. The orcs break through the walls of the lock shop, and Hamid picks up the nearest weapon-adjacent thing and tosses it to him. Zolf catches it, inspects it, and then turns incredulously to Hamid. “I’m not gonna kill someone with a metal pipe, Hamid!” An orc roars, and Hamid reloads his crossbow before throwing a very exasperated glare over his shoulder at his– his… oh, God, Hamid’s not having the ‘what are we’ conversation in the middle of a firefight. Or, what _would_ be a firefight if Hamid had gotten any sleep and if Wilde wasn’t on the verge of death. He’d better wake up soon, because otherwise, they’re all going to get _slaughtered._

Hamid fires a crossbow bolt. Sasha slinks out of the shadows to sink a dagger right through a pale scar on the side of one of the orcs’ throats. “Why not?” Hamid demands, reloading once more.

Zolf ducks back next to him. He doesn’t drop the pipe. “Harder to kill people with blunt force than it is with a couple of good pokes to their vital organs. Especially when you can deliver those pokes from a safe distance.” Bertie screams something that might be words (but that Hamid doesn’t listen particularly close to) and hacks off an arm. Hamid shoots again – and hits, miracle of all miracles – before turning slowly to give Zolf a flat look.

“Zolf,” Hamid says.

“Yeah?”  
“Darling.”  
“...yeah?”  
“Joy of my heart.”  
“Uh-huh?” Zolf gets out through gritted teeth.

_“DO YOU SEE ANY BETTER OPTIONS?”_ Hamid snarls, and there’s a roar from directly above him, so he snatches the pipe from his inquisitor’s ungrateful hands and whirls to smash the pipe into the orc’s jaw. It connects, but it just makes them angry, and the shockwaves of tingling not-quite-pain shooting up his arm aren’t exactly a benefit. Zolf reaches up and slams his hand into the orc’s chest, and a noise like tsunamis roils around the small space as the already injured orc collapses from the holy blow.

Zolf looks down at him, and there’s more than a small amount of smugness in the tilt of his lips. “I mean, I’ve got that.” Hamid massages his arm and glares.

(He’s undecided on how _exactly_ he’s going to make Zolf suffer for that, but he’ll think of something. Maybe Tasha’s Hideous Laughter. He’s always liked that one.)

\---

Hamid walks above deck (after several small plinking noises against the outside of the ship by his little nook in the common room and the one very large _THOCK_ that startled Hamid so severely he dropped his wine glass) to find Em levelling a gun at his partner’s head. “Look,” Sasha says, and she is _far too calm._ The hints of a smile tick up at the edges of his mouth as Eldritch Blast takes shape in the runes around his wrists. “Zolf said he’d take responsibility, yeah? So, it’s his fault. Not yours. You can put the gun down.” A gnome notices the magic coiling tight through Hamid’s hands and takes a step forward to stop him.

Earhart swivels the gun cleanly to face him, still staring down Zolf. “Call off your mage,” she says coolly, and Hamid bets he can get off a shot before she can. The magic flickers higher, and Hamid can hear laughter from somewhere that is not his throat falling threadbare into the sky’s emptiness. “Smith,” she says, with an edge to her voice that Hamid would give anything to bet she practised in the mirror this morning.

The laughter is coming from behind him, Hamid realises as a manic grin nearly cracks his face in two, and he can see the crew members around him, fighting down smiles of their own. Area effect. Hamid is _so damn furious_ with the captain that his Patron is giving him more delight than he knows how to contain. Hamid hears something, but it’s drowned out by laughter, and Hamid’s voice joins the pirates’ as his Patron overwhelms him with joy. His vision blurs with tears, and he’s torn between screaming and roaring and burning the captain from the inside out with elation.

Something grabs him by the face, and Hamid’s roaring laughter dies down to a slightly muffled giggle just because of how his mouth is being contorted. “I’m not going to get shot,” Zolf says, and the overwhelming glee drains out of his system so quickly he almost slumps into Zolf’s arms. “Stop being overdramatic.” Hamid huffs a little laugh at that. His cheeks hurt.

Something thin pokes him in the spine, and Hamid squawks in protest. “You laughed like that for ten minutes,” Sasha says, poking Hamid in the throat, the chest, the stomach. The last one tickles, and he curls into himself like an armadillo. “New record for religious breakdowns. Also, everyone laughed with you this time, which would have been cool if it wasn’t _really godsdamn creepy.”_ Hamid digs his thumb into the bits of his cheek that hurt the most and squishes his face in an attempt to stop it from aching. 

“What,” says Em, “the _fuck_ was that?”

She’s still smiling, but there’s a hard light in her eyes that no amount of Fae magic could suppress. Hamid puts a hand against Zolf’s shoulder to brace himself as he stands back up. His knees are jelly, and he doesn’t know if it’s due to the lingering effects of his Patron or because of airsickness. “I don’t believe I’ve properly introduced myself,” Hamid says in a non-answer, and his face hurts as he smiles sweetly at her, but it’s worth it for the sneer that she can’t quite express. He answers, “I’m Zolf’s boyfriend, Hamid, and I don’t like it when people threaten to shoot my partner.” He doesn’t extend a hand. (He gets the feeling the pilot wouldn’t take it, anyway.) “And _that_ was my Patron. It also doesn’t like it when people threaten to shoot my partner.” The smile leaves Em’s face, and Hamid beams at her defiantly.

She looks at him, and then at Zolf. “No more accidents on my ship.” Zolf nods in understanding. The captain sighs, rubs the bridge of her nose, and holsters her firearm. “Quit gawking!” Em snaps, and the crew go back to business. 

Zolf adjusts so that he’s got an arm around Hamid’s back and a hand on his elbow as he starts helping him back to their room. “Zolf,” Hamid protests, “I’m fine. I’m not fragile.” Zolf makes a derisive noise, and if Hamid were a small bit more spiteful or a small bit less greedy, he’d push Zolf off of him. But he’s not quite _that_ spiteful, and he’s incredibly greedy for attention (for Zolf’s hands on him) so he lets himself be helped. “What did the captain mean, anyway? ‘No more accidents’?”

“I kinda pushed Bertie off the ship.”

_“…what?”_

\---

The paladin is useful. And really, that’s what Hamid is looking for! Useful, overly trusting, kind of a ponce. That what paladins are suitable for, and those are all the best qualities of a meatshield. Well, the one who whirls his scythe through zombie after zombie's stomach almost as fast as he moves is really too small to be a meatshield, but he manages to take out about half of the zombies in a few quick moves, and Hamid grins at him brightly. “Hello,” he says, extending a hand and hoping the paladin can’t Sense the less-than-pure magic filtering through his skin, “I’m Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan — are you looking for a job?” The paladin blinks at him, and then he blinks at the hand.

“Grizzop drik Acht Amsterdam.” He thinks for a moment, sizes up Hamid and then Zolf and Sasha behind him. He shrugs, gives Hamid a grin of his own (with incredibly sharp teeth, all lined up, incredibly bright against his inkwell-black skin) and takes Hamid’s hand to shake it heartily. “Yeah, alright! We’re hunting down the rest of the zombies first, though.” Hamid nods in agreement and then turns to Zolf and Sasha with the grin still on his face. Bertie hasn’t even been gone a week, and they’ve already found a suitable replacement. Aren’t they lucky?

Of course, he is a _paladin,_ and they tend to be righteous in a way that Hamid disagrees with on principle, but maybe they’ll be able to hold themselves together for long enough to corrupt him. (Hamid’s always wanted to corrupt someone divine. Zolf doesn’t count; he was like that when Hamid found him.)

\---

Aziza’s dead.

\---

_Aziza is dead._

\---

The Cult of Mars shows up, and Sasha moves quicker than Hamid’s ever seen her. She doesn’t waste a second on Studying; she just sinks her daggers into the soft spot between helmet and chest plate and hisses, _“Go.”_ What’s Hamid supposed to do? Object? Grizzop runs fast, too, and the bloody circles he whips his scythe in are more calming than they have any right to be.

\---

Aziza is dead, and Sasha’s dead too. Zolf’s healing doesn’t quite work on her anymore, but apparently, Grizzop is so holy that it gets through the desecration of her still-breathing corpse. 

Aziza’s dead.

Sasha puts a hand on his shoulder when he starts giggling. “It’s not funny,” she says awkwardly, like she’s trying to break some bad news to him, and Hamid just laughs harder. It’s not funny. Aziza’s dead. Sasha’s dead and dying. Hamid can’t do anything. His Patron can’t do anything. But maybe, if Hamid laughs loud enough, his Patron won’t be mad at his lack of faith. Hamid needs his Patron to love him. So he laughs instead of crying, and his cheeks twitch with the effort to keep smiling, and Hamid picks at the evidence of his pact until the runes bleed.

\---

Hamid laughs as tears stream from his eyes. Hamid laughs as the half-crazed memory of Kafka snapping his sister’s neck replays over in his head. Hamid laughs as he shakes to pieces. Hamid laughs as he presses his face into Zolf’s chest at one in the morning and prays he doesn’t wake him up. Hamid laughs and laughs and laughs.

\---

Hamid is falling.

There’s raucous music playing so loudly around him that his ears bleed, but it’s so distant and far away that he can’t make any of it out. Everything is a blur of sapphron and viridian and violet, and Hamid is _falling._ The world is hazy around him until it sharpens with crystal clarity, so bright that it stings Hamid’s eyes. Small hooks grab at him, pull at his mouth and his wrists and his ankles. “False worship,” laughs his Patron, and Hamid strives for a smile, but there’s an alien clicking of displeasure as the insectoid hands pull his mouth back into a frown, “is worse than no worship at all. Laugh despite, not because.” Something wraps tight around his waist, like a serpent constricting his stomach, and Hamid gasps for air. The music chokes him, and there’s a phonograph playing nothing but horrible laughter, and everything is a blur of phosphorescence, and the runes on Hamid’s wrists are the shape of his Patron’s dragonfly grin. “Hamid,” giggles his Patron, “Hamid, Hamid Hamid Hamid—”

_“Hamid,”_ snaps Zolf, and Hamid has both his wrists caught in one of Zolf’s hands with the other carefully cradling his face. (Hamid isn’t fooled. He can feel the familiar way his cheek stings.) Hamid blinks his eyes open, and the Feywilds taste sweeter than wine at the back of his throat. Zolf is staring at him, pinning him more or less completely to the bed so Hamid won’t hurt himself. Zolf doesn’t say anything when Hamid watches him silently, just waits for Hamid to make the first move.

Hamid can’t stand to hear how miserable and rasping his own voice must be. He leans into Zolf’s touch, closing his eyes, and Zolf lets him go, rolling over so Hamid can move properly. Hamid buries his face in Zolf’s chest and lets himself sob. He’s not a pretty crier, but at least no one has to see that. Zolf doesn’t relax the whole time, but he does put a hand on Hamid’s back; he actually even goes so far as to mutter, “There… there?” which is so funny that Hamid’s crying pauses to turn into something like a very watery snicker. He laughs despite the problem, not because of it.

Something iridescent coos happily in the back of his head.

\---

Sasha sinks to her knees, still weakly stabbing the pile of squelching cloak, and Grizzop gently picks her up. “You killed it,” he says softly, “you killed it, it’s dead.” Hamid would roll his eyes if there weren’t so many people watching him. _Paladins,_ honestly. Sasha doesn’t need any soft words or gentle reassurance; she needs to be picked up and dusted off and set loose again. Sasha doesn’t thrive under soft words of encouragement, she thrives under fiendish grins and bad jokes and promises to let her stab someone, really, in the kidneys and everything. “You got it,” Grizzop repeats consolingly, “it’s gone all the way down to Tartarus, okay? It’s dead. It won’t do anything except rot, now.” Tears are flowing sluggishly down Sasha’s cheeks, and Hamid suddenly realises that maybe she needs assurance, after all. She’s leaning on Grizzop, and she’s _crying._ Two signs of weakness? In front of rich strangers? The partygoers all make worried noises as Hamid takes Zolf by the arm and pulls him after the slayer and the paladin to the lounge. Someone else can deal with that. Hamid needs to make sure his friend doesn’t break so badly she can’t be used. 

(Hamid needs to make sure his friend doesn’t break because he likes her, actually. He thinks they’re fond of each other, and Hamid doesn’t want to lose her.)

Sasha sniffles and pretends she isn’t crying. Grizzop sets his head on her shoulder, and Hamid sits close enough nearby that she can touch him if she wants to, but far enough for there to be a comfortable distance between them. Zolf sits across from her, and he doesn’t say anything, but he stretches out a hand.

Sasha takes it.

\---

Hamid knows what loneliness looks like, and he knows how to spot someone being excluded from the group. So while Grizzop talks to the mayor or whoever, trying to sort things out after Apophis glassed the factory, Hamid sidles up to the orcish woman acting naturally, all by herself, and taps her on the thigh. She startles some (he doesn’t blame her; it’s probably hard to notice someone half your height) and looks down at him. “Hello?”

Hamid smiles sweetly up at her. “Hello! I just wanted to know what you were doing over here. By yourself.” She opens her mouth to say something, and then she looks over at a small group of other orcs wistfully instead, setting her mouth into a mournful line. And Hamid isn’t Sasha; he can’t Study people and know what to say, but he knows what longing to be less of an outcast looks like. “I’m Hamid Saleh Haroun al-Tahan,” he says, reaching a hand up as his name flows off his tongue like wild honey, “but my friends just call me Hamid.”

She looks strong, bigger than even Bertie was, and Grizzop’s more of a healer than a meatshield, anyway. Sasha likes him too much for Hamid to want to kill him. (That’s a lie; Grizzop is annoying as all hell, preaching at every opportunity, and Hamid would deal with his ear-blood inducing cackle for hours if it meant that the paladin would _just go away.)_ The orc smiles at him, almost like she’s in disbelief, and crouches to shake his hand. “Azu,” she says. Easy to win over, outcasts. Just give them a place where they feel a bit less alone. “Are… would you like to be friends?” Hamid laughs, but not at her. There are few faster ways to lose someone’s trust than to laugh at them. 

Hamid laughs like she’s questioned something so obvious that it might as well have been written in the sky. “You seem interesting,” he says with a friendly grin, “I’d like to get to know you.” Azu smiles back at him, and Hamid can practically see her alliances shifting. “So, Azu: what exactly are you doing here in Damascus?”

\---

They come up to the factory to find Sasha and Zolf bound, gagged, and looking murderous. “Terribly sorry,” says a man smugly, and Hamid can feel laughter burning up through his throat, “we did try to resolve this without violence.” Hamid is going to Eldritch Blast the man where he stands, but there’s a quiet _cr-r-rack_ from behind him.

“I don’t know you,” says Azu quietly, but there is so much _fury_ in her gentle voice that Hamid does a double take. Her eyes are dark, black even under the sun’s blazing light, and if Hamid really went in for religion, he’d say the way it filters through her tight curls looks something like the halo of an angel promising swift and violent retribution. “But I don’t think you are a nice person.” And she is upon the man in half a second, battleaxe drawn from midair, cleaving the man in one solid swipe, blood spattering across the remnants of his white suit and the white cloth binding Zolf and Sasha together.

Hamid titters. Barbarian. He befriended the outcast that happened to be a _barbarian,_ and what kind of luck is that? Grizzop cuts the cloth in half, and Sasha spits out her gag half a second before Zolf does and blurts, “He said he had hostages! Him and his lot got Bi Ming Gusset, and someone named Erika, and Ishaak—” she stops, looks at the body and then at Azu— “nice hit, by the way, that was well good – and Vezik! Vez– Vezeek? Visik?”

Grizzop’s knuckles go a shade of grey that can’t be healthy around his scythe. “Vesseek.” Hamid giggles nervously as the Goblin reaches out and prods at the dead man’s face. “And this is Wellington. _Shit,_ okay, this is— this isn’t good, this _really_ isn’t good! God, I– shit.” Sasha puts a flaking, half-decayed hand on his shoulder, and he leans into it.

Zolf stands up and massages the metal of his joints. Hamid takes his other hand and squeezes tightly, more to upset his balance than to reassure him that Hamid is there and that he won’t let this happen again. “Grizzop,” says Zolf, sharper than he really needs it to be, some hint of his naval training coming out in his tone, “what the hell is going on?” Grizzop reaches up and sets his hand over Sasha’s.

His red eyes stay fixed on the ground as he asks, “Remember the bit where I’m a Paladin?” Hamid bites the inside of his cheek so that he doesn't interrupt Grizzop’s confession with his nervous laughter. “Not exactly,” Grizzop says, bitterness laced into his tone so thickly that Hamid can practically taste it; then he looks up, mouth fixed firmly, ears set back like _vengeance._

“What do you know about the Cult Of Hades?”

**Author's Note:**

> hi i love class swaps a lot and im very sorry that i didn't get to get into grizzop & azu's respective class changes. azu is a barbarian fueled by _THAT IS MY FRIEND YOU STOP HURTING THEM_ which is my favourite kind of barbarian tbh. and grizzop was an antipaladin of hades, which means he's CHAOTIC EVIL and has CRUELTIES instead of mercies but still loves his friends bc i say so. also he worships actual hades and not Hades As Alex Has Decided To Paint Him bc hades is basically afterlife-brand admin and i love him. if you wanna talk to me about this au, my inbox is always open on tumblr @roswyrm hit me up!!!! message me totally unprompted!!!!!!!! i'll be happy to talk to you!!!!!!!!!!!


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